The United States and Israel have launched a major attack on Iran • Hacker News Board

Re: The United States and Israel have launched a major attack on Iran

#601

Post by eleventyseven » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 2:50 PM UTC

cies wrote: post #523

Arun2009 wrote: post #426

I am just befuddled by how much of this violence is directly motivated by religious concerns, both on the side of Iran and on the side of Israel and USA. I have been reading on the topic of shunyata or emptiness in Mahayana Buddhism, and have been uncomfortably observing just how much of the artifacts we take to be real and substantial in the world are just "made up". They don't have an inherent reality of their own…

Religious concerns are, IMHO, always a facade for the underlying economic/territorial/geopolitical reasons. These religious facades help sell the war effort: get young men to enlist and fight to the death for "preserving their identity". And "muh freedom" is just as much a religious motivation to me (unsubstantiated, indoctrinated, unthreatened).

Religion isn't the facade, it is the medium through which other reasons are transmitted

Re: The United States and Israel have launched a major attack on Iran

#602

Post by Braxton1980 » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 2:50 PM UTC

kyrra wrote: post #552

epolanski wrote: post #351

The president of peace btw. I'm baffled at the lack of calls to boycott the Fifa world cup in US. And at the double standards applied to Russians and Israelis in their wars of aggression. I guess Israel can play the "October 7th" card at least which was an insane horror.

"Peace through strength" That's the policy being followed here. If you remember back a few weeks, Iran killed likely 30,000 of its own citizens. On top of that, they will not negotiate about medium and short-range missiles or stopping of nuclear production. A power like that that happily goes after it's neighbors, directly or indirectly is a threat to everyone.

>A power like that that happily goes after it's neighbors, directly or indirectly is a threat to everyone.

Is the US a threat because of its actions towards Venezuela?

Re: The United States and Israel have launched a major attack on Iran

#603

Post by ch4s3 » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 2:50 PM UTC

ruben81ad wrote: post #479

sega_sai wrote: post #363

The take home message from this is that the only way for any country to be secure is to have nuclear weapons.

This has nothing to do with nuclear weapons. The only problem here is that iran has petrol. Thats it.

This is an incredibly facile take on the situation. Iran has been a destabilizing regional power with imperial aims for 47 odd years. They even murdered the PM of Lebanon via their proxy army. They’ve been poking the bear for decades, and there are serval occasions where it may have happened sooner in an alternative universe. Had McCain become president in ‘08 we may well have seen a land invasion from US positions in Iraq, as the Iranian Quds force was already fighting US soldiers in Iraq. The whole DoD is now full of Iraq veterans who hate the Iranian government to their bones. It’s shocking this didn’t happen sooner, and probably only didn’t because of luck.

Re: The United States and Israel have launched a major attack on Iran

#604

Post by guerrilla » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 2:50 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #406

0x600613 wrote: post #324

2 countries with the best war technologies on earth must work together to have a war with embargod-country-for-decades. And those 2 counties are founder of Board of Peace.

> 2 countries with the best war technologies on earth must work together to have a war with embargod-country-for-decades It gives us a regional coalition partner. That's never a bad thing, regardless of circumstances.

> It gives us a regional coalition partner. That's never a bad thing, regardless of circumstances.

You missed the point. The fact that it requires two of them to gang up on Iran says something about how capable Iran is in defending itself.

Re: The United States and Israel have launched a major attack on Iran

#605

Post by iso1631 » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 2:52 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #413

papaver-somnamb wrote: post #328

I recall someone (name escapes me at the moment) defining WW3 as ignition in 5 flashpoints between belligerent groupings: - Eastern Africa esp. Sudan, which we all nearly universally ignore - Israel Iran - Russia and a neighbor which we know today is Ukraine - Pakistan Afghanistan India - China Taiwan Plus Plus Attributes that distinguish WW3 from previous world wars were IIRC: Contained conflagration, short targeted…

> Attributes that distinguish WW3 from previous world wars were IIRC You're missing the commonalities, what defined world wars: the full might of industrial economies being dedicated to military campaigns. World War II's theatres' were incoherent–the Axis interests in e.g. China and the Pacific had basically zero stragegic overlap with Europe and North Africa. (The only parties having to consider a unified theatre be…

British Empire was heavily involved in Europe, North Africa and South-East Asia. Events in India had great consequences on Europe

The USSR on the other hand barely had any involvement in the Pacific theatre, entering in August 1945.

Re: The United States and Israel have launched a major attack on Iran

#606

Post by phendrenad2 » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 2:52 PM UTC

papaver-somnamb wrote: post #328

I recall someone (name escapes me at the moment) defining WW3 as ignition in 5 flashpoints between belligerent groupings: - Eastern Africa esp. Sudan, which we all nearly universally ignore - Israel Iran - Russia and a neighbor which we know today is Ukraine - Pakistan Afghanistan India - China Taiwan Plus Plus Attributes that distinguish WW3 from previous world wars were IIRC: Contained conflagration, short targeted…

I'm surprised such a superstitious reply is so highly-upvoted. There's no "WW3" any more than there is time travel or blue smirfs. It's a hypothetical, but you're talking about it like it's an inevitability. That's just not logically-sound thinking.

Re: The United States and Israel have launched a major attack on Iran

#607

Post by techblueberry » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 2:53 PM UTC

underdeserver wrote: post #585

I am saddened by all of these comments. Will not one of you try to steelman this decision? Or do you truly, fully believe the entire US government and intelligence complex, supported by roughly 50% of your compatriots, are warmongering baboons?

I think it's possible it's a good decision (As with most wars in the middle east, I think hubris is playing a heavy role and we're underestimating the risks involved) but I think I'm in the minority and this is _not_ supported by 50% of my compatriots.

I don't know if by 50% you're talking about left vs right, but I'm center left, and a decent number of center-left thought leaders support this action. I think the people who support this are a relatively narrow 25-30% of remaining neo(lib|con)s in the center, and the more left and the America First right crowd hate this. My guess would be loosely speaking Trump's base hates this more than the typical HN poster. Tucker Carlson for instance will be way more against this than anyone here.

Re: The United States and Israel have launched a major attack on Iran

#608

Post by eleventyseven » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 2:54 PM UTC

alex_low wrote: post #382

I'm surprised this has not been mentioned, for context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Iran_massacres

Because HNers are not so gullible to swallow and regurgitate this pretext. The Trump administration doesn't care about the people of Iran, any more than Bush cared about the Iraqi Kurds or Afghan women. Just a pretext for geopolitics.

Re: The United States and Israel have launched a major attack on Iran

#609

Post by guerrilla » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 2:55 PM UTC

ourmandave wrote: post #577

Again, little to no information for the US public. No approval from Congress. Calling for the people to rise up. You can't bomb your way into regime change. Are we supplying arms to groups? Is there a plan beyond pointless death and regional chaos the president would like to share?

> Are we supplying arms to groups?

Yes. The US supports the monarchy, the Kurds and MeK. The CIA was revealed to have armed MeK (despite designation) and my guess is that they do with the Kurds too. The CIA also talks to the Balochi groups as well although I don't know how organized or armed they are.

Needless to say, "regime change" would in reality mean civil war like Syria or collapse like Libya.

Re: The United States and Israel have launched a major attack on Iran

#610

Post by twistedpair » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 2:55 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #428

sega_sai wrote: post #363

The take home message from this is that the only way for any country to be secure is to have nuclear weapons.

Israel has a lot of nukes (while they pretend they don't) and that does not prevent them from being attacked.

This is part of why we help defend Israel, to constrain wars to conventional means.

In the first Gulf War, we placed the Patriot batteries around Israel, as they said that if an Iraqi biological or chemical SCUD attack hit Tel Aviv, they would vitrify Baghdad.

Having nukes doesn't prevent _anyone_ from attacking you, but it does constrain those attacks to conventional means. And what if you pulled off a decapitation attack against Tel Aviv? Well their fleet of nuclear capable subs would make you pay.